UNIVERSITY COALITIONS for GLOBAL HEALTH

Hey UCGH-The House FINALLY sent PEPFAR II to mark up. The bipartisan bill passed committee with a supportive voice vote and will now move onto the floor.

However, the bill that was passed today was a “compromised bill”, which essentially means that the democrats opened dialogue with the republicans the night before markup and created a bipartisan bill that all sides could support. The compromise text includes more than 95% of the language contained in the Democratic draft of the 5-year reauthorization legislation. However, this new legislation has the support of Foreign Affairs Acting Chairman Howard Berman, Ranking Republican Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the White House. The legislation contains groundbreaking provisions which move the Global HIV/AIDS program beyond the “emergency” phase of implementation to “sustainability”, dramatically boost HIV/AIDS programming related to women and girls, strengthen health systems in countries hard-hit by the HIV virus, authorize HIV/AIDS programs to include linkages to food and nutrition, education and health care programs, and increase U.S. contributions to the Global Fund.

Cool things in the bill:
• Reauthorization level of $50 Billion over the next 5 years for Global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria initiatives.
• Training and retention of 140,000 new health care professionals and workers.
• Removal of the 1/3 abstinence until marriage funding earmark that applies to global HIV/AIDS prevention funding. Instead, the Administration will be directed to promote a “balanced” prevention program in target countries, including all elements of the Abstinence, Faithfulness, and Condoms (ABC) approach towards HIV prevention. The Administration will also be required to report to Congress if behavioral change programs, such as abstinence and fidelity, do not receive 50% of the funds devoted to the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV in countries in which there is a generalized HIV epidemic (currently, 33% of all HIV prevention funds in all countries – a much larger pot of funds – must be spent on abstinence). The 50% figure triggers a report, and is not an earmark governing the expenditure of funds.

Not so cool things in the bill:
• The compromise text returns to existing law related to the so-called “prostitution pledge”.
• The bipartisan bill contains new benchmarks for U.S. contributions to the Global Fund, but does not contain a funding penalty if the benchmarks are unmet.

Overall, this is a good bill that is working to take PEPFAR in a more comprehensive and evidence based direction. Thank you to all of you who helped support this effort!

Now a word from our friend Kaytee Riek at HealthGAP

BIPARTISAN GLOBAL AIDS BILL HAS SUPPORT OF BOTH PARTIES, BUT ONLY DOES HALF OF WHAT IS NEEDED IN FIGHT AGAINST GLOBAL AIDS PANDEMIC:
³As with all Compromises, we have to give up some of the things we needed²
- Committee Chair Berman

Contact: Kaytee Riek (267) 334-6984

February 27, 2008
For Immediate Release

Washington, DC: The House Committee on Foreign Affairs announced a bipartisan compromise bill to reauthorize the President¹s Emergency Plan to Fight AIDS (PEPFAR). This compromise bill will replace the one that the late, great Congressmember Tom Lantos originally proposed. The compromise, struck by Committee Chair Berman, Ranking Member Ross-Lehtinen and the White House, is a good starting place to ensure that the United States can do it¹s fair share to fight global AIDS, but as Committee Chair Berman says, ³compromises mean that we don¹t get all of what we want² and in this case, all of what is needed.

³We are excited that this bill has the support of both parties and of the administration and that the President has agreed to fund the bill at the minimum of $50 billion. However, we need to learn from the past five years.
The current bill needs to include the target number of providing treatment for 4 million people who are going to die without immediate treatment² said Kaytee Riek from Health GAP. As it is written, the bill proposes to ensure that only 3 million people are treated, which is one million less than the number who would be treated by the United States¹ commitment to providing AIDS treatment to 1/3 of those in critical need.

³The US should do our fair share to train sufficient health workers to keep our promise to Africa. In order to do this, we need to train and retain an additional 140,000 new health professionals,² said Health GAP¹s Jennifer Flynn, referring to the UNAIDS estimate of the number of health professionals required to achieve universal access to HIV treatment in Africa. ³Without this language, we are in danger of draining existing already overburdened health systems.²

Representative Payne emphasized the importance of passing this bill in time for the G8 meeting so that the United States can use our pledge to ensure that other developed nations contribute their fair share to the global AIDS fight.

Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey highlighted that the bill still includes what is commonly referred to as the ³Prostitution Pledge², the practice of requiring community based organizations to sign a form that they will not support prostitution. Experts have argued that this requirement means that local groups have to choose between providing treatment, services and support to individuals who engage in sex work in order to survive and ignoring those at higher risk for HIV infection. Representative Ackerman from New York responded that saving the lives of women who engage in survival sex is in the best interest of public health.

The full House is expected to vote on the bill in the next two weeks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 5:35 pm and is filed under HIV/AIDS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.